COMEX: A cost management expert system

Understanding and using cost accounting is a key to success in any type of organization, because it helps managers to collect important data about the costs assigned to products, services and customers and use it for planning and control function. This paper discusses development and application of an expert system for reasonable decision making and continuous processes improvement. The system is called COMEX (COst Management EXpert system) and is implemented in JavaDON, an open-source expert systems shell based on the OBOA framework for developing intelligent systems. The paper also shows how COMEX can be used for improvement of the Billing Department business processes. COMEX relies on information generated using the Activity Based Costing method, accounting method based on activities, created to improve cost management system by focusing on the driver costs of the single activity.